Gossip... have you ever been the object of such activity; how about participating in it yourself? Well, the Bible is very specific in its warning against gossiping, and follows its warning closely with instructions regarding how we should correct those who do so. Gossip is hurtful... if it were meant to lift someone up then it would have been exercised openly in the form of an announcement. No one ever gossips about good news unless their intention is to undermine it.
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and honors the initial Thanksgiving feast that was celebrated in 1621 after the first harvest was completed by the puritan settlers in the New World. Today this holiday is widely celebrated as a national holiday with heavy religious meaning, but no absolute requirement pertaining to faith, yet for the early pilgrims it was most certainly a time of thanking God. On this day every faithful person gathers to give thanks to God, and I have often wondered who one would thank if they were not of faith. Would you thank yourself, someone else in particular, or would it just be a happy day of being with family and friends while you eat, dance, and the go shopping?
Do we believe that God gives dreams, and prophetic visions today? Are there prophets who are shown what God would have us see, and who speak His Words to us? Are there dreamers who are given both personal, and national, guidance and knowledge regarding current and future happenings? If we don’t believe this, or see evidence of it, then we are lost to lawlessness... we will have lost all restraint.
After Jesus had been going about the land teaching and performing miracles he returned home. When we look at this portion of His life we talk about how He was rejected by the people there in Nazareth, but for the most part we skip over the fact that when He returned home, He started doing those same things He had done while growing up... He went to synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood to read. This scripture refers to these as being His custom. What are our customs? What are we doing now in our pursuit of God, and faith that are becoming who we are?
Sometimes we feel trapped in our sins, and unable to escape the everyday miseries of life, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By listening to the words of Jesus, and feeling His healing touch upon our bodies, we can be returned to a life of spiritual and physical freedom, and joy. We can be made whole by Christ, and by an awakening of the Holy Spirit.
The world works hard every day to cast the image of God after itself, and to reshape His Word in such a way as to do its own bidding. We hear it ringing across the land as men compare God to the beauty of tall buildings, or the mighty dams they have built to hold back rivers. We hear it echoing in our houses, governments, and churches, as the Word of God is bent in strange and twisted ways so that people can feel good about their debauchery, and justify such things as the taking of blood. Do we fall prey to this wooing and to these lies of the dark one?
Do you wish that God would use you, but haven’t heard His voice? Well let me ask you a couple of questions. The first is... Have you prepared yourself for God’s use, and the second is this: are you listening for only a certain type of calling... maybe it’s one that is meant to glorify you alone, or then again perhaps it is something that is less than what God has planned for you?
How valuable do we consider Jesus Christ to be in our lives? Do we pay Him homage by worshiping Him publicly before men of faith, but retreat from Him when the crucifixion crowd gathers? Do we fall back into the old ways that once defined us both outwardly, and inwardly? In short... we may have given Him our words, but have we yielded our hearts to Him?
What can we do, and how fruitful is our faith apart from Jesus Christ? With what words do we praise the Father without His teaching, and how effective are we without His intercession, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our prayer closet? We are nothing without our Lord. Even though we think we can come to God of our own volition, is that really so?
When we see ourselves as strong, mighty, and self-sufficient then we are foolish, but when we consider ourselves as small, and humble before God, then we are wise indeed. How do we view ourselves, and conduct our affairs? Do we spend our time gathering sustenance from God’s Word, seeking safety and protection in His shadow, walking obediently in the way of righteousness, and completing our day by humbly worshiping before the Father’s feet?
Do we spend our time praying, worshiping God, praising the name of Jesus, and doing the Lord’s will, or is our time and effort directed at arguing over the unfathomable mysteries of faith? The dark one is a shrewd character, and he will redirect our attention from the important matters of God while making us feel like we are pursuing something righteous. As Satan is doing this we are left spitting into the wind... wasting valuable time that could best be spent saving souls, and not driving them away.
We find it hard to comprehend the concept of eternity, and in fact we usually satisfy ourselves by thinking of it as having begun somewhere about the time of man’s creation and running as far into the future as we can imagine, but it is greater than that. Eternity has no beginning, no middle, and no end... so how can we, being limited creatures, possibly join God there?
What have we done entirely of ourselves? What have we done that we can claim wholly as ours? Not a single thing can be accomplished that God has not facilitated it, so to Him we owe the glory. Our very next breath, the strength in our arms, the power of our thoughts, the circumstances, and the successes of every venture, they are all of Him, by Him, and through Him. In this regard we should yield all glory to God. Does this cause our pride to fidget, and squirm within us?
Are we satisfied with the Lord, and is He our entire portion in life? Before answering too quickly, think about it first. We are taught to respond “Yes!” to this question, and so, in knee jerk fashion, we do, but is our heart in that answer? Mankind... We are a restless and discontented creature that never seems to be satisfied for very long.
We are meant to be God’s people, but do we turn our back on the one who has given us shelter and protection, and snapped at the hand that has fed us? When God called to us He showered us with His love and care through Jesus, but over time have some of us have become fixed once again on our own abilities, our own desires, and forgotten whose children we are? Have we spurned heaven, that eternal place we call home? If so, then what awaits us now, and has God lost His love for us?